


Filthy Yakker

by moodyme



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Baseball, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Ronan and Adam are both kinda oblivious, Slow Burn, TRC Big Bang, TRC Big Bang 2019, a cameo of closet anime fan Declan Lynch, featuring my love of American roadtrips and my hatred for California traffic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-01-31 13:45:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18592444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodyme/pseuds/moodyme
Summary: Ronan and his adopted sister Opal are dragged to California by Gansey, who just wants to spend some quality time with his best friend and his significant others. Opal, who has developed an odd interest in the sport, just wants to watch the Stanford baseball team practice. Ronan just wants to get to know the pitcher for said baseball team, Adam Parrish.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Amazing awesome wonderful art for this fic was done by the amazing, awesome and wonderful Bonzarr -her [Tumblr](https://bonzarr.tumblr.com/) and [ Insta ](https://www.instagram.com/bonzarr_art/?hl=nl)  
> With special thanks to the super cool [Sinai ](https://livelove-sjones.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Warnings: Language/cursing, a character is mentioned being taken off life support, referenced canonical child abuse, depression and suicidal thoughts are mentioned,

 Ronan sat at the Barnes' kitchen table across from Gansey, scowling. Gansey had spent the last twenty minutes whining about how Ronan could have fun on a road trip and how much fun he could have in California. Which had only made Ronan scoff, because being in the Silicon Valley surrounded by a bunch of yuppies and the sickening love fest that was the Gansey-Sargent-Cheng relationship sounded like a good way to an early death by annoyance to him.

 "Come on, Ronan, Palo Alto will be beautiful in the Spring! And we would all be together again, just like in high school. And it would be good for Opal, too." Gansey pleaded.

 Opal, the brat, chose that moment to run through the kitchen door.

 "What would be good for me?" She asked with furrowed brows, slowly approaching the table. Like most other 11 year olds, anytime she heard something was good for her, she was immediately suspicious. Maybe Opal more so than other 11 year olds.

 Ronan noticed her upper arms were covered in mud, though the rest of her was still mostly clean. He would have to ask her about that later.

 "A trip!" Gansey exclaimed, "With me and Ronan, up to California for the Spring to visit Henry and Blue. Wouldn't that be fun?"

 "Not really." Opal said with a shrug. Ronan had rarely been so proud of her.

 Gansey looked deflated, for only a moment, before a wry grin spread over his face. Ronan knew that smile. Gansey was about to land the killing blow to his peaceful Spring at the Barnes.

 "You know," Gansey said casually, as though he were suddenly not entirely invested in the discussion, "Henry happens to be friends with a certain classmate at Stanford."

 "So?" Opal asked, she and Ronan wearing matching confused looks.

 "So, this friends of his just so happens to play baseball. The name Adam Parrish mean anything to you?" Gansey asked, looking at his nails, and Ronan just knew he was fighting a smug smile. Damn him. Damn him and damn Henry fucking Cheng for having friends and ruining his Spring. Opal was silent for a moment before gasping.

 "Henry knows Adam Parrish,  _the_ Adam Parrish?" She demanded, fists connecting loudly with the wooden surface of the table.

 "Mmhmmm," Said the smug bastard, "and Henry said he could get as in to a training game to watch them play. Maybe even take us to meet the team." And there it was, the nail in the coffin.

 "Wow," Opal breathed, dazed and happy, "oh, wow. Really? This isn't just a dumb joke, right?"

 "Opal, I would never joke about something like that," Gansey said, suddenly serious. "Not when I know what he means to you."

 "Can we go?" Opal asked, looking at Ronan with wide eyes.

 "Yeah, Ronan, can we?" Gansey pleaded, like his future happiness depended on his answer.

 "Fine." Ronan growled. "I guess we're going to California."

 Opal whooped loudly, and barreled back out the door. Gansey exclaimed "Bully!" as though he were Teddy Roosevelt. Ronan groaned, resigned to his fate. Pitifully, his farm manager, Maisie, wouldn't even care that he was leaving during birthing season. She and the other hands had been pressuring him to take a vacation for months. He had no allies left in this cruel world.

  


 Three days after the exchange in the kitchen, Gansey was helping Ronan load his and Opal's bags into the Pig. Ronan loved the old beast, but he wasn't entirely sure it would make it all the way to California. Gansey, ever faithful to the people and things he loved, had no such reservations.

 "Are you excited for the trip?" Gansey asked as he slammed the trunk closed.

 "I don't hate the idea of seeing the Maggot again." Ronan admitted, "Wipe that dumb grin of your face, I plan on avoiding Cheng as much as I can."

 "That may be difficult, seeing as we're all staying in a cozy 3-bedroom house." Gansey reminded him. He laughed at Ronan's groan.

 "I'll find a way." Ronan said darkly. He looked up at the house where Opal was running up the steps of the porch and inside, screaming about forgetting her camera. "Hey, man, are you sure about this? It won't be one of those 'You should never meet your heroes' situations, right?"

 "You mean Adam Parrish?" Gansey asked, making a thoughtful noise. "Henry said he's wonderful, a little hard to know, maybe a little standoffish, but that he is a genuinely good guy."

 "You're sure?" Ronan asked. The last thing Ronan wanted was Opal to be disappointed. If this Adam Parrish turned out to be a dick, Ronan was going to kick his ass. Then he was going to break every one of his fingers.

 "Like I said, I wouldn't let that happen to Opal." Gansey said. He put his thumb against his mouth. "He’s a part of who she is because of how important he is to her."

 

  And it was true, Gansey and Ronan and everyone else Opal talked to for more than five minutes knew how much she loved Adam Parrish. Her obsession began a year ago, with the more generalized obsession with baseball.

 On a cold winter day, she started snooping around the house, before she ended up in Declan's old room. She went through his dresser, poked around his closet, looked on his bookshelf and found nothing remotely interesting. Finally, she crawled under his bed and pulled out a cardboard box. Inside, Ronan would later find out, she found neatly packed anime DVDs. At random, she took out a large case. On the cover were several girls in odd poses and with wild hair. Opal ran downstairs to play it, and before the Winter ended, she had gone through all six discs of the Complete Collection of  ' _Princess Nine_ ', forcing Ronan to sit with her to watch random episodes that left him entirely confused about the plot and characters. For a normal kid, finding an anime and watching all 26 episodes would maybe have ended with Opal becoming an anime fan, like his apparently closeted anime fan older brother. Opal had never been a normal kid.

 Instead, as Winter turned to Spring, he had gotten an Opal that stole the remote from him just as the winner of Chopped was being revealed, hurriedly flipping through the channels of the TV before randomly leaving it on a Major League Baseball game. He had sat with her, fuming that he would never know whether Judy or Sean had won, for the first inning before getting bored and heading to the kitchen to start lunch. By the time the game ended, she had gone from being a fan of a baseball anime to somehow being a superfan of the actual sport, watching every Major League game of the season, and then watching every College game she could. Her obsession with Adam Parrish had been revealed to Ronan on a terribly hot day in June, when Opal approached him with gleaming eyes.

 "He did it." She said, in nearly a whisper. Ronan, panicking, demanded to know who had done what.

 "Adam," she said, "Adam Parrish won the College World Series." It was all she could get out before she sniffled, and her eyes got even more watery.

 "Okay," Ronan replied, awkwardly reaching a hand to her shoulder before aborting the motion at the halfway point, "that's good right?"

 "Yeah," she sighed, running a hand under her nose to wipe away the dribble of snot that was quickly making its way to her upper lip.

 "Yeah," Ronan repeated, suppressing a shudder of disgust. He wondered if this was why she had been glued to the TV for the last week, cheering loudly sometimes, booing vehemently at other times. He also wondered who the fuck Adam Parrish was. He didn't have to wonder for long. Before the week was over, he knew Adam Parrish's entire baseball career.

 "Did you know Adam Parrish played in the Little League World Series?" Opal told him over breakfast, her mouth stuffed with pancake.

 "Adam Parrish played for the Mountain View Mountaineers! He grew up in Henrietta!" Opal shouted, pointing at her laptop.

 "Adam Parrish won state twice, did you know that?" Opal yawned as Ronan carried her on his back up to her room.

 "Adam Parrish became the starting pitcher for Stanford in his Freshman year." Opal informed him as they shoveled shit in the barn.

 "He played shortstop when he played Little League, but when he got to high school he started pitching but his batting averages are more than decent and I heard there's a rumor going around that the Marlins are trying to recruit him as a first baseman." Opal rambled as they drove home from mass.

 After a week of hearing about nothing but the great Adam Parrish, he would have been tearing his hair out if he had any left on his shaved head. He settled for the next best thing, calling Gansey. It was the second greatest betrayal of his life when Gansey had only laughed and confessed to knowing all about Adam Parrish thanks to Opal's e-mails.

 "And he seems like an interesting fellow, doesn't he? To so capture Opal's attention is not an easy task. And really, I know nothing of the sport, but statistically speaking, he's a phenomenal player!" Gansey told him, his voice distorted by the static. Ronan hung up on him.

 

 Now, here they were, about to take a four day drive to meet the bastard. Adam Parrish. Ronan would barely admit it to himself, and wild horses couldn’t get him to confess it to another soul, but he was a little jealous of how much Opal loved the guy. He home schooled her and last fall he had told her for a week she had to learn fractions, only to have her stubbornly refuse to even try. Now she was a fractions whiz, multiplying and dividing the shit out of them. Why? Because Ronan told her Adam Parrish would be disappointed in her if she didn’t. It was like convincing a kid to eat spinach so they can be strong like Popeye.

 “If this goes balls up, I’m blaming you.” Ronan finally said.

 “I accept that responsibility.” Gansey answered, smiling.

 A moment later, Opal came out, calmly locking the door behind her. It was the least excited she looked since she found out she would be seeing her idol play baseball. Ronan worried if her nerves were getting to her.

 Silently, she slid into the backseat, next to Chainsaw’s cage. Ronan and Gansey exchanged matching concerned glances before following her into the Pig. As they drove down the drive leading away from the Barnes, Ronan got that old familiar homesick feeling he had as a teenager, back when his parents died and Declan had taken them from home. It was supposed to be for their own good, but Ronan had hated every minute of it. Now that he had the Barnes back, he rarely wanted to leave them. He made concessions though, leaving to visit Declan and Matty in D.C, going up to New Haven or Boston or wherever else Gansey’s fancy had led him.

 “Why didn’t you ever tell me Henry knew Adam Parrish?” Opal said, snatching Ronan out of his own thoughts. She had directed the question at Gansey, and he looked uncomfortable behind the wheel, something that didn’t happen often.

 “Opal, what I am about to tell you may change your opinion of me forever.” Gansey paused to take a deep inhale, “Henry talks a lot about a certain friend of his, but he only ever called him Adam. I knew he was in the science department with Henry, but I also knew he was from Henrietta and was at Stanford on a sports scholarship. I just… never connected the dots.”

 “How did you not realize? It was obviously Adam  _Parrish_!” Opal exclaimed, pulling on the sides of the front seats to better gawk at Gansey in disbelief.

 “Adam is a common name.” Gansey sniffled, defensive. Personally, Ronan thought it an uncommonly weak argument, and told Gansey so.

 “Well, sorry.” Gansey huffed.

 Opal laughed and then refused to talk to Gansey for the rest of the day. 

 

 

 For the next six days they drove, from Virginia to California. They could have made the trip in less time, but Gansey kept insisting they stop at, in his exact words, “Historical or cultural points of interest.”

 They took stupid pictures outside the Parthenon in Nashville, Opal mocking Gansey when he kept saying how remarkably they had copied the original in Athens, because of course Gansey had seen the real thing.

 They toured Graceland, and Ronan found Elvis attractive, sure, but he was getting unnerved with how his face seemed to always be watching him from every sign and shop and restaurant.

 When they got to Texas, Gansey surprised Ronan with a can of spray paint and a graveyard of Cadillacs, ready to be defaced. It was like Gansey had given him his birthday and Christmas at the same time. The three of them went wild, painting illuminati symbols (Opal), dirty Latin phrases (Ronan) and a heart with the initials BHG inside (Gansey). Ronan and Opal both gagged when they saw what he had done, and didn’t stop teasing him until they got to the Blue Hole of Santa Rosa, where they all paused for a moment, stunned both that they were alone and by the beauty of the place before jumping off the rocks and into the warm water.

 At some point past Albuquerque, they had to pull off to the side of the highway and go through the atlas Gansey kept, trying to figure out where the hell they were. The desert sun beat down on the three of them, Opal standing on the hood with her arm extended in the air, trying to get cell reception. Ronan was helpfully kicking up dust and threatening to hitch a ride with the next car that drove past.

 “I think I took a right at the last turn-off when I should have taken a left. I know where we have to go.” Gansey finally said, ushering them back in the car.

 “You’re shitting me.” Ronan laughed, “You took a wrong turn at Albuquerque?”

 “Dick Gansey is secretly Bugs Bunny, confirmed.” Opal deadpanned from the backseat.

 

 

 When they finally crossed the border into California, Gansey and Opal became even more talkative, excited about seeing Blue and Henry, and, of course, Adam Parrish. Ronan did not share their enthusiasm. They drove through the night for the next 500 or so miles, Gansey’s and Ronan's insomnia helpfully kicking in. It seemed to be contagious, Opal staying awake off cheap gas station coffee and the prospect of soon meeting her idol.

 The Pig pulled into the Palo Alto rental house just as the sun was peeking over the horizon, casting everything in a hazy golden glow. Five minutes after they got through the door, Opal crashed in her room, leaving only Ronan and Gansey, who kept glancing at his phone, awake.

 “Henry?” Ronan asked, nudging him in order to sit beside him on the garish red couch in the living room.

 “Yes,” Gansey sighed happily, “I just texted him to let him know we arrived safely. He wasn’t amused we decided to drive all night.”

 “He coming over soon?” Ronan couldn’t imagine him not jumping in his Fisker the moment he was in the same zip code as Gansey. He didn’t think Madonna herself could keep him from him.

 “As soon as he gets his coffee and does his hair,” Gansey laughed, waving his phone. “And Blue will be here this evening.”

 “The Three Musketeers together again.” Ronan said, jabbing Gansey softly in his ribs.

 “Together again,” Gansey sighed, a goofy grin plastered on his face. “Ronan, do you think it’s wise for any one person to be as happy as I am right now? It must be shifting the scales of fate somehow.”

 Ronan looked at Gansey, really looked at him. He was closer than a brother, and Ronan loved him more than life itself. He knew how hard it had been on him these last few months being separated from his other halfs. Blue off on another eco-warrior expedition, this time in Costa Rica, Henry at Stanford and Gansey sequestered in an East Coast or European academic library, researching a man long dead. Reuniting for brief snatches during holidays and when Blue stayed somewhere long enough, working, until she had enough money saved up to go save trees in the Amazon again or some shit. Summers were, however, spent together, the three of them adventuring together or choosing to spend long days at the Barnes or in Henrietta, surrounded by their found family. It was the same cycle they had been in for the three years after graduation, the three of them off pursuing their dreams. And while the 3 a.m panicked phone calls from Gansey, questioning whether they would all be able to handle the distance after high school had ended after the first year, that didn’t mean they didn’t all miss each other fiercely during the months they weren’t together.

 “Fuck fate. You deserve that happiness,” Ronan said, “You know it’s true because I don’t lie.”

 “Thank you, Ronan. You know, you’re a large part of this happiness. Being with you and Opal this past week has been one of the funnest adventures I’ve ever had, and I am so glad you agreed to come. Having the opportunity to have you and Blue and Henry with me, ” Gansey said, and his face and voice were so earnest, it physically pained Ronan. “I know we were all just together at Christmas, but it’s made me more than happy. I am positively euphoric.”

 “Shit, man, don’t get sappy.” Ronan groaned, sliding off the couch and into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him as a frantic knock resounded through the house, signaling the arrival of Henry Cheng.   

 

 

 Ronan was not aware of when he had fallen asleep. But he awoke, slowly at first, and then all at once, startled by the sight of Blue Sargent peering over him, her cropped hair falling forward around her face, casting it in eerie shadows.

 “Fucking shit, Maggot!” He shouted, his body instinctively attempting to flail his arms and failing, trapped as they were within the confines of his sheet cocoon.

 “Don’t be a baby.” Blue scoffed, “We tried knocking, but you didn’t answer. You made Gansey think you’d died from an overdose of emotional conversation.”

 Ronan wiggled one arm out of its 800 thread count prison to flip Blue off. She rolled her eyes in reply before bending down and giving him a hug.

 “Ewww Sargent, is this something we do now?” Ronan groaned, patting her back.

 “It is now, fucker.” She whispered, causing them both to laugh.

 “Shit,” Ronan yawned once they had separated, “What time is it?”

 “A little after 8 p.m.” Blue told him with a frown after catching his yawn.

 “Did you just get in?” He asked, sitting up after mostly untangling himself.

 “Nope.” She said, “I said my ‘hellos’ to Gansey and Henry a few hours ago.”

 “Fucking hell, never try to wiggle your eyebrows again.” Ronan growled. “Its freaky as fuck looking.”

 “Just get up, loser.” Blue growled back, defiantly continuing to wiggle her eyebrows “His majesty wants everybody to come eat.”

 When Ronan finally excited his room, he was presented with a glowing Gansey and Opal, the latter gazing up at Henry. Ronan didn’t have to hear the next words out of his mouth to know he must be talking about Adam Parrish.

 “...and of course he said we could come over in the morning to meet him.” Henry was saying, basking in Opal’s attention, “Adam says he’s excited to meet you as well.”

 “No.” Opal answered, “No way. He knows I’m coming?”

 “Of course!” Henry exclaimed “I told him all about you!”

 “Okay. Okay, cool.” She said, obviously trying not to freak out. Ronan made a derisive noise, and Opal turned and informed him, “We get to meet Adam Parrish.”

 “I heard, brat.” Ronan said, ruffling her hair before crouching down to whisper so only she could hear. “Are you okay? We don’t have to.”

 “I’m fine,” She hesitated, shifting on her feet. “That’s not entirely true. I’m nervous too, and a little scared he won’t be how I picture, but I still want to.”

 “Then we meet him. Just don’t be too disappointed if he’s not as great as you want.” Ronan warned.

 “That’s not what I-” Opal began, frowning, before she was interrupted by Gansey shouting, “Pizza’s here!”

 As the night progressed, he forgot to ask her what she meant, in part because he was distracted by Opal demanding to know why Blue hadn’t known about Adam Parrish being Henry’s friend, they had gone to high school together, something Ronan was embarrassed to realize he hadn’t thought of.

 “I knew the name, but I didn’t know about the Henrietta connection.” Blue admitted, shifting in her seat, “I didn't have any friends at Mountain View, but I knew of Adam, everybody did. He kinda fell off the map senior year, disappeared for awhile. I didn’t know he went to Stanford.”

 Opal seemed satisfied by her answer if her shrugging and tearing into another slice of pizza was anything to go by. Ronan wasn’t as convinced, he had noticed the way Blue wasn’t quite meeting Opal’s eyes, but he chose to drop it. Sometimes the Maggot was just shifty like that.

 

 

 The next morning, before the five of them squeezed into the Camaro, Opal pulled Ronan aside.

 “Is it lame to wear this today?” She asked him, gesturing to the Stanford shirt Henry had bought her, a deep red t-shirt with a white tree printed on the front.

 “Do you think it’s lame?” Ronan didn’t lie, but he was also never going to tell Opal he thought it was, indeed, a _little_ lame. She considered his question before shaking her head. “Then it doesn’t matter what I think. Do something because you like it, wear something because you like it, forget whether anybody else thinks it's lame. Fuck ‘em.”

 Opal ran off to thank Henry again and he caught Blue giving him an approving look, so he threw his middle finger up at her. Damn the little eavesdropper for catching him being sincere.

 Ronan refused to sacrifice the passenger seat to either Blue or Henry, so they were forced to sit in the back with a fidgeting Opal between them. They stopped for a breakfast of bottled coffee and snacks at a Trader Joe’s despite Ronan’s vehement protests before finally parking near the practice field. Henry had told them they would also get to watch the team at an actual pre-season practice match, but for now, they would be watching the team train.

 The team was already on the field playing by the time they got settled in their bleacher seats, Opal choosing to stand as close as possible for a better view. She had her hand up to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun and was watching the field intently, pointing out players to Ronan and the others one by one.

 “I sent Adam a text, he said he would come up to say hello after he finishes talking with his coach.” Henry told her when she failed to spot Parrish among the other players.

 Before long, a man exited the dugout and jogged over to them. It was Adam Parrish. Ronan was surprised when the first thing he thought when he was close enough to see him clearly, was that the TV images he had seen of him from games he had been forced to watch with Opal did not do him justice. The second thing he thought was that Adam Parrish had really nice arms. The third thing he thought, was that he should stop thinking about how attractive Adam Parrish was because he was rapidly approaching them.

 “Hey, Henry,” Adam greeted before addressing the rest of them, “Hello.”

 “Adam! Let me introduce you! This is Richard Campbell Gansey III,” Henry said, “My boyfriend.”

 “Just Gansey, please,” Gansey grimaced, shaking Adam’s hand.

 “Blue, our girlfriend,” Henry continued, beaming, “She also went to Mountain View, how wild, right?”

 Adam looked uncomfortable for a moment, before he and Blue nodded at each other. “I think I remember you. Blue Sargent, the psychic’s daughter, right?”  
  
 “Yep. We had 4th hour English together.” Blue said, smiling. Recognition flashed across Parrish's face.

 “Oh, I remember that… didn’t you pour pudding on Mr. Graham’s desk after he said no female protagonist could ever be better than Holden Caulfield?” Adam asked, laughing. It was a really nice laugh.

 “I had forgotten about that!” Blue said, she then gestured at Ronan, “This is our friend, Ronan Lynch.”

 Adam made to shake his hand as well, and Ronan panicked for a fraction of a moment before remembering that it was just a handshake, and there was nothing to panic about. It was a firm handshake, and Adam had calloused fingers. Ronan looked between them at their joined hands, and noticed that Adam had oddly delicate looking wrists for a pitcher. ‘Oh, fuck, this has lasted too long for a normal handshake,’ Ronan thought, hurriedly letting go of the other man’s nice hand. He coughed a little to try to indicate he wasn’t embarrassed and said a quick prayer to Saint Jude for help.

 “You must be Opal,” Adam said, bending slightly at the waist to shake her hand as well, “Henry’s told me a lot about you.”

 “It’s nice to meet you.” Opal said, taking his hand and shaking it seriously.

 “You too,” Adam said. He looked from Opal to the rest of them and smiled, “I have to get out on the field, but stick around until practice is over, and we can talk some more.”

 He took off the cap he was wearing and placed it on Opal’s head. “Protect your eyes,” he said, and jogged back to the field.

 Ronan felt Henry sidle up next to him. “It’s unfortunate how little people talk about how great the pants baseball players wear are, isn’t it?” Henry whispered. Ronan rolled his eyes and whispered back where he could shove his opinions.

  


 Ronan sat through the practice, listening as Adam and the other players heckled and encouraged each other. Adam spent most of the time on the pitcher's mound, the catcher approaching him at what Ronan thought was random times, to have short discussions with Adam. Since none of the others technically knew what was going on at any given time, Opal showed off her knowledge of the sport, informing them of the different pitches Adam was throwing, as well as what the other players were doing. Gansey mentioned that she had ‘a real future as a sports commentator’, which was a weird thing Ronan thought adults did; giving career advice to kids when they showed the slightest interest in something. No, Karen, just because your kid likes looking at stars doesn’t make them a future astrophysicist.

 Eventually, the other players began leaving the field, and Adam waved them over.

 “You want to give it a try?” Adam asked Opal, holding up a baseball in his glove.

 She looked to Ronan for a moment with eyes that warmed his heart, and he nudged her shoulder encouragingly. Opal took off for Adam and he started showing her his glove and different ways to grip the ball. Ronan couldn’t hear what he was saying to her, but she seemed to be listening intently.

 They started tossing the ball back and forth, Adam sometimes having to extend his arm or jump or run to catch Opals less controlled throws, the two of them playing uninterrupted until the food Henry had delivered through Postmates arrived.

 “Are you interested in playing baseball?” Adam asked Opal as the six of them sat in the outfield eating Chipotle. “Or softball, I guess.”

 “Not really.” Opal shrugged, picking at her food.

 “My little league coach still has a team, in Henrietta.” Adam told her, “That’s near you, right?”

 “Yeah, Ronan went to school there.” Opal said.

 “Aglionby?” Adam guessed, and the way he said it sounded scornful to Ronan.

 “Aglionby.” Blue confirmed for him, her tone matching Adam’s. “He gets half a pass since he graduated through a home school program, but still, _Aglionby_.”

 “I guess,” Adam conceded, scrunching up his nose cu- _nope, Ronan, bad train of thought, bad._  Adam directed his attention back to Opal. “Do you just like watching? You don’t have any interest in playing yourself?”

 “I don’t know,” Opal sighed. “Is that weird? To love a sport but not want to play it?”

 “Do you think it’s weird to play a sport but not love watching it? Because I’ve played baseball for fifteen years, and I rarely watch a game because I want to anymore. I watch it to study other teams, so I can learn from them and become a better player.” Adam said, and it reminded Ronan of his conversation with Opal earlier, about whether he thought her shirt was lame.

 “No!” Opal said, perhaps too enthusiastically.

 “And there’s your answer.” Adam said simply, returning back to his food.

 

 The rest of the afternoon was spent tossing the baseball around, Gansey stealing Adam away to talk at him about Glendower, Ronan and Blue exchanging insults that escalated in their level of vitriol until Gansey had to pull himself away from Adam to physically separate them. Henry was recording the exchange on his phone, cackling as Blue, who had possession of the ball, attempt to throw it at Ronan’s head. Suddenly, they all watched in horror as the ball went wildly off course in the direction of Adam, who now had his back turned to them to answer a question Opal asked. Miraculously, Adam caught the ball over his shoulder, without looking. Henry went silent, a miraculous feat in itself. It was, possibly, one of the hottest things Ronan had ever seen.

 “How?” Gansey said under his breath. Adam just looked at them, annoyed.

 “Were you trying to give me a concussion? Christ.” He huffed.

 “How the fu-how?” Ronan sputtered, repeating Gansey.

 “I don’t know, I could just feel it.” He shrugged, “It happens.” Adam turned and tossed the ball back to Opal. “Don’t follow their example, these things can do a lot of damage. Concussions, broken noses, brain damage if it hits hard enough. And that’s just the head stuff. I once took a fastball to my knee and it swelled by to twice its usual size, couldn’t walk for nearly a week.”

 

 The day ended without any further accidental-near-concussions, and as Henry and Opal raced to the Camaro, Blue and Gansey straggled behind, stopping to admire every tree they passed. That left Ronan and Adam alone, strolling at a casual pace. Ronan was trying to work out a way to slip in the fact he liked boys when Adam slid his phone out of his pocket.

 “You should go ahead and give me your number.” He said, and Ronan paused mid-stride to quickly thank Saint Jude.

 “Why?” Ronan questioned, hopeful despite himself.

 “What? For Opal.” Ronan was proud of the self-restraint he showed when he didn’t immediately spontaneously combust from disappointment. “She said you would be okay with you and her joining me for a morning run tomorrow.”

“Oh, no, that’s fine.” Ronan said, wishing he could glare daggers at Opal, but she and Henry had just turned the corner and were out of sight. Ronan dug his own phone out of his jeans and handed it to Adam. “I never know how the fuck to do that shit in these bastards.”

“Great, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” Adam murmured, distracted and using both hands to program the others numbers into the two phones. Too soon, they arrived at the Pig, and Adam waved them off, Opal clutching the hat Adam had given her to keep.

“Well, I’ll say what I everyone else is surely thinking, shall I? Adam is delightful.” Gansey said as Adam disappeared from Ronan’s sight in the side mirror.

 

 Opal had just drifted off to sleep after exhausting herself recounting to Ronan everything that had happened during the day, as though Ronan himself hadn’t been present, when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He felt it again when he went through the living room and found Blue and Henry asleep on the couch, both of them propped against Gansey’s shoulders, who looked improbably comfortable with the burden.

 He smiled up at Ronan and mouthed goodnight, and Ronan felt impossibly fond of him in that moment so he only pretended to gag a little at the sickeningly domestic tableau he had walked in on. A third buzz came as he shut his door, and Ronan was determined to continue ignoring it, but a niggling voice in the back of his mind that sounded too much like Gansey reminded him that Declan and Matthew were nearly 3,000 miles away. A series of text notifications stared back at him when he looked at the screen. When he saw the name they came from, he opened them swiftly.

_Adam Parrish - 10:47_

_Hello, this is Adam. We met earlier, I’m the pitcher at Stanford. Sorry to text so late, but I was wondering what time would be good for me to pick you up tomorrow? Is six too early?_

_Adam Parrish - 10:49_

_Also, is Opal able to run a full mile? You seemed in pretty good shape, so I assumed you could but I’m not used to running with kids._

   _Adam Parrish - 10:50_

_Do you both have proper shoes?_

 

 Ronan read over the messages once, and then again. His thumbs hovered over his phone, unsure how to respond. As he contemplated whether it was possible for someone to seem cute over text, another message appeared.

 

_Adam Parrish - 10:53_

_It was really nice meeting you and Opal btw :)_

 

 Oh Christ. It was possible to find someone cute over text. Objectively there wasn't even anything in the text that was cute in and of itself like that ‘ewwoe’ way of texting or whatever that shit was that Blue used sometimes to annoy him. It still seemed cute to Ronan.

 

 -10:54

 yes we have shoews what the fuck?

 -10:54

 I dont knwo she runs a shit ton so probaby

 -10:55

  we literliy live one a farm 6am is practically lunch

 -10:56

 thts not true thats still early but sure its fine

 

_Adam Parrish - 10:57_

_Running shoes? If Opal (or you) isn’t able to do it, we can stop whenever :)_

 - 10:58

 Yes. Running Shoes.

 - 11:01

 never question a whather a Lynch xan do something were motivated by spite

 

_Adam Parrish - 11:05_

_Noted._

_Adam Parrish - 11:06_

_Okay, I have to be up at 4, so good night._

 

 - 11:08

 Thats Fucking Early

 - 11:09

 good night adam

 

 

 As promised, Adam showed up right at 6 am. He was already sweaty and explained that he had ran a few miles before meeting up with them. Opal, who was used to getting up early on the farm, but was tired from the week of travel and the excitement of yesterday, had only roused when he reminded her who was coming, now raced ahead of them. Like the previous day, Adam and Ronan chose to keep pace with each other.

 “Hey, man, thanks for doing this for the kid.” Ronan grunted, a block away from the house. “You’re like her hero or whatever, so, yeah. Thanks.”  He had been mentally preparing to say it since yesterday and it felt good to get the emotion away from him.

 “It’s not a thing, don’t mention it.” Adam said, looking awkward and waving a dismissive hand. “Besides, your daughter is pretty fun to talk to, and she’s a cute kid.”

 “The fuck?” Ronan exclaimed, stopping so suddenly in his tracks that Adam was now several feet away from him. In what universe did he look old enough to be Opal's Dad? He was only 9 years older than her for Christs sake. “Seriously, the fuck man? She’s my sister, and, speaking of - Hey! Fart sniffer! Get the heck back here!” Ronan shouted at Opal, who hadn’t noticed the two of them stopping and was rapidly getting further away down the street. She huffed back to them, annoyed.

 “What?” She whined.

 “Don’t get too far ahead, I don’t wanna lose you.” Ronan told her, cuffing her playfully behind the ear and avoiding her trying to swat his hand away. He waited until she bolted ahead again before speaking again. “Anyway, she’s my sister, I’m too young to be a Dad.”  
  
 “One of our outfielders is 19 and already has two kids, but OK.” Adam informed him as he narrowly avoided colliding with another jogger

 “Sure, but are any of his kids almost a teenager?” Ronan snapped. “Besides, I’m gay, so there’s that.” Ronan was often blunt in life, and, sure, he had been working up to a way to casually slip in the fact he was gay. He barely kept the blush down anyway, embarrassed that he was perhaps coming on too strong.

 "There’s always adoption?” Adam tried again, apparently refusing to concede that he had assumed wrongly. “You guys just seem close is all, and I don’t think most twenty-something brothers spend spring break with their baby sisters and not, I don’t know, partying in Cabo or whatever.”

 “We- uh… I kind of have custody of her?” Ronan hesitated, “Our parents… died not long after she was adopted, and I wasn’t in a good place so our older brother had her for a few years, but I got custody two years ago.”

 “Oh, that’s cool.” Adan remarked, his eyes going wide when he realized what he had said. “Shit, not about your parents dying, sorry. Just, it’s great that you were willing to take on that level of responsibility.”

 “Um, okay?” Ronan said, feeling awkward.

 Thankfully, the rest of the run ended without any more uncomfortable conversation. They ended their run back at the rental house, Opal darting inside, shouting about how she was going to tell the others about the three ‘Gansey clones’ she had seen that morning.

 It was a game she had played for years - find someone that dressed even vaguely “gansey-esque’ and immediately tell Gansey some evil politician had cloned him to wreak havoc on the world. The more clones spotted in a day, the closer they were to the apocalypse, or something. Ronan suspected Blue had invented the game as one more attempt to get Gansey to change his style. Thus far, it had failed. Miserably.

 “I wanted to say,” Adam said, hesitating before the stairs leading to the house, “I’m sorry if I offended you about being Opal’s dad. You know what they say about assuming.”

 “Yeah, well, you are an ass, but it’s whatever.” Ronan answered, picking at a piece of imaginary lint on his arm so he wouldn’t have to make eye contact.

 “Cool.” Adam said, “uh, I’ll text you later?”

 “About what?” Ronan asked, finally looking up. There was a determined look in Adam’s eyes that prevented Ronan from looking away.

 “Can I not?” Adam replied, his accent shifting just a little, becoming just a tad slower and thicker.

 Ronan realized that he was hearing the Henrietta accent he had grown up with yet separated from. To Ronan, it sounded much better than Adam's controlled voice that sounded like the non-accent some of the bastards he knew at Aglionby used. Adam’s shoulders squared just a little, like he was preparing for something. Disappointment, maybe.

 “If you want to, sure,” Ronan shrugged, not understanding why Adam was being so insistent, “I may not answer though. I’m shit with phones, remember?”

 “You replied so quickly last night though, I figured you must be glued to it or something.” Adam said, glancing back at the door and the voices drifting from inside the house and back at Ronan. Before Ronan could defend his quick response and adamantly insist that it was rare for him to even consider replying to texts, Adam continued. “I guess, I’ll, uh, see you later.”

 “Okay? Bye.” Ronan grunted, thrown by the shift in conversation and Adam’s hasty departure. He watched Adam as he ran until he realized what he was doing and quickly retreated back to the house.

 Inside, he found a bleary eyed Blue watching him with a manic grin. She turned and walked back into her room, cackling all the way at his raised brow. She was such a shitty friend sometimes. Ronan continued into the kitchen where Henry was shuffling about throwing what looked like random papers and kitchen detritus into his backpack, grumbling about being late to a morning meeting. Ronan shuddered to think what goody-two-shoes social or environmental activist nonsense he could have a meeting for at 6:30 am, but he refused to pity him for it.

 “Have a good run?” Gansey asked from where he stood at the counter, pouring coffee into a travel thermos. Henry grabbed it from him with a quick peck on the cheek and a shouted farewell to Blue before he hurried out the door.

 “It felt good to move.” Ronan admitted, watching the way Gansey hid a smile behind his mug.

 “Opal seemed to enjoy it.” Gansey said, “Adam seems to have become even more esteemed in her regard.”

 “Uh-huh. What’s with the fucking smile, Dick?” Ronan spat, not at all sorry when Gansey choked a little on his coffee.

 “'Glued to your phone', eh?” Gansey answered after he got his breath back, not even trying to hide his smile now.

 “I thought it might have been Matty!” Ronan exclaimed.

 “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Ronan.” Gansey informed him with a pat on his shoulder, stepping around him and back to his room. Ronan’s string of expletives and threats not bothering him in the slightest.

 

 Thirty minutes later, Ronan was pacing his room, his phone to his ear as he called Declan. He hoped to catch him during his lunch break, when he was mildly less of a tool then when he was doing the work of an asshole political analyst or whatever the fuck he did.

 “I can be on a plane in 45 minutes.” Declan said. There was something tight around the words that Ronan could hear even through the crackle of the connection.

 “Opal’s fine.” Ronan sighed and waited to hear the matching sigh of relief from the other end of the line before he continued. “You started dating Ashley when you still had Opal, right?”

 “Yes? What does tha- wait, is this about Adam Parrish?” Declan sounded too happy for Ronan’s comfort. “Ops has been texting me about him.”

 “Maybe.” Ronan conceded, “Look, theoretically, if this was about him, but it’s not, but if it was, and I don’t even know if he likes guys, okay? But is it, like, bad for Opal?”

 There was a long moment when Declan didn’t answer, during which Ronan experienced the oft felt desire to chuck his phone off the nearest tall structure.

 “Ronan, you have actual shit for brains, don’t you?” Declan scoffed, “If it was bad for Opal, you wouldn’t even be thinking about it.”

 “You know that’s not true, you know what I-”

 “Do not start on that shit, shithead. That isn’t you anymore, you got help, you got better. Do you think I would have _ever_ let you have custody of Opal if I didn’t know, you hear me? If I didn’t know that you weren’t the best damn person to take care of her?” Declan asked, and Ronan could feel the anger in his voice.

 “No, I don’t think you would.” Ronan sighed. Something fell off his shoulders at that, something he hadn’t realized he had been holding. A fear, or something like it.

 “No, I wouldn’t.” Declan snapped. “Look, you like this guy, right? Go for it, or don’t, for Christ’s sake Ronan you aren’t a child.” With that, Declan ended the call. Ronan sometimes thought Declan must hate his cell phone as much as Ronan did, though for a different reason; you couldn’t dramatically slam down a cell phone onto a receiver like some 80’s teen movie villain.

  


 

 “-And to your right, you’ll see the the Hoover Tower, which houses a carillon of 48 bells and was named after Stanford alum, President Herbert Hoover!” Henry exclaimed as he continued giving his tour of Stanford.

 “You just read that off Wikipedia, didn’t you?” Blue said.

 Henry sputtered for several moments as he hastily shoved his phone back into his pockets. Gansey pulled out his old Brownie camera from the ‘60s, his latest obsession, to carefully take a photo of what Ronan thought was a relatively unimpressive tower. He had seen better.

 As Henry flashed his student I.D at the receptionist to get them in for free, Ronan felt his phone buzz. He made sure the others were adequately distracted before he pretended to get interested in something on the other side of the lobby before stealthily pulling it out.

_Adam Parrish - 3:16_

_Hey, Ronan. How do you feel about Star Wars?_

 

 Ronan spent several moments wishing he could forget the lightsaber duels he had gotten into with Declan when they were younger where he was forced to be the evil Sith to Ronan’s Jedi.

 

 - 3:19

 i think everyone feel posively toawrds star wars

 

_Adam Parrish - 3:21_

_Cool. How about trees?_

 

 Ronan read the last message twice and wondered if you could get whiplash from texts.

 

 -3:22

 What

 

 It was all he managed to send before Opal was pulling him along to follow after Henry, who was blathering about the damn bells again. He didn’t feel his phone buzz again the rest of the afternoon, and what was already a shitty tour became worse.

 He started checking his phone every so often under the guise of checking the weather back home. Or to see if Maisie had called about the goat that had been causing trouble. Or if Matty had gotten sunburned while playing Lacrosse.

 Finally, just as they were finishing dinner and he was able to say ‘fuck off’ to Gansey’s movie night suggestion to go relax in his own room, Adam texted again.

 

_Adam Parrish - 7:24_

_Sorry, I was talking to one of the assistant coaches and then it was team meal. There’s this place just north of San Fran, the Muir Woods. It’s where they filmed the scenes on Endor in Star Wars. With the Ewoks? The little teddy bear creatures? If you’re free on Thursday, do you want to go?_

 

 -7:27

 Christ i knw what a ewok is i wasnt born uneder a rock

 

 - 7:29

 r youy asking me to teh woods to kill me?

 

 - 7:32

 r you?

 

 - 7:40

 I am free that day tho so sure

 

_Adam Parrish - 7:40_

_Sorry again, was interrupted by my roommate. No, asking you to go to the woods is not an elaborate ruse to commit murder._

 

_Adam Parrish - 7:41_

_Ok cool. Same time as today?_

 

 - 7:43

 thumbs up emoji

 

_Adam Parrish - 7:45_

_Oh god, did you just text “thumbs up emoji”? Just send the actual emoji._

 

 - 7:47

 and ruin my street cred???

 

_Adam Parrish - 7:52_

_I am going to pretend to understand that. Shrug emoji._

 

 - 7:55

 now youo can sit withh the cool kids

 

 - 7:56

 congrats

 

_Adam Parrish - 8:00_

_I already sit with the cool kiss._

 

_Adam Parrish - 8:00_

_*kids_

 

_Adam Parrish -8:02_

_Alright, I’m going to bed now, see you on thursday. Goodnight._

 

 - 8:03

 i doubnt it

 

 - 8:04

 goodnight Adam

 

 

 Tuesday and Wednesday passed in a whirlwind of being led around Palo Alto by Henry Cheng, sending pictures to Matty, Declan and Ashley of Opal standing in front of various ‘important’ places, and walking in on Blue and Henry in the kitchen with armfuls of chocolate sauce, Caramel sauce, whipped cream, ketchup for some reason, honey, and suspicious grins.

 “I refuse to know about this.” Ronan growled, grabbing the keys to Henry’s Fisker, “Opal! We’re going on a drive!”

 “We’ll call you when we’re done,” Henry laughed as Ronan stormed out of the kitchen.

  


 When Thursday morning finally came, Ronan waited outside for Adam, who arrived right at 6 a.m, in a red Mustang. Ronan circled it, slowly, once. Thoughts of the speed he once craved floating in the forefront of his conscience as he did.

 “Shit,” Ronan whistled appreciatively as he slid into the passenger seat. He wished Adam would let him drive.

 “It’s not mine, I borrowed it from one of the assistant coaches,” Adam explained.

 “Does being an assistant coach pay that well?” Ronan asked.

 “No,” Adam scoffed, “But Noah played in the Minors for a few years before his teammate beat his head in with a bat.”

 “That’s fucked up,” Ronan grunted.

 “Yeah, Noah had just done a suicide squeeze which somehow started a rhubarb, and then Barry Whelk was trying to kill him with a bat.” Adam said, before biting his lip as he pulled away from the curb and onto the street.

 “The only part of that I understood was ‘Barry Whelk was trying to kill him with a bat.’ What the fuck is a rhubarb?” Ronan huffed, “Besides a fucking pie ingredient?”

 “A rhubarb is a fight on the field, and a suicide squeeze is when the batter gets in a bunt to let whoever is on third get home.” Adam said, waving his hand dismissively, “You can stop grinning, we aren’t doing the ‘Who’s on First’ skit.”

 Half an hour into the drive, and Adam batted his hand away when he tried to turn the radio over to something besides the lecture Adam had missed and needed to listen to. As the professors monotone voice droned on about inviscid fluids, Ronan tried to subtly steal glances at Adam.

 There was something about the way Adam handled the Mustang that had Ronan suddenly wishing they were at the Barns. If they were there, Ronan could watch him drive the BMW, which he felt would add to the scene. The Mustang was an automatic, and Ronan wanted to watch Adam maneuver the gears of a stick-shift, although he wasn’t quite sure why. No, that wasn’t true, he knew why, he just wasn’t quite ready to wholly admit to it.

 When Adam finally caught his gaze as he changed lanes, Ronan turned his attention to what lay outside his window. The nearer they got to San Francisco, the harder it was for Ronan to breath properly. All these houses pressed so near each other, the hurry hurry hurry he saw through the window, it pressed down and all around him. Claustrophobia gripped him, and he wondered how anyone could _exist_ like this, let alone thrive.

 As they passed over the Golden Gate bridge and Adam pointed out Alcatraz to him, Ronan could finally breathe easy again. Seeing the hills just beyond the bridge reminded him of home, and beyond them there were open spaces, nature. It wasn’t much longer and the Mustang was pulling into a parking space and Adam was leading him towards the entrance.

 Ronan had seen pictures of Redwood trees before, his dad had once brought back of photo of him standing by one, but photos had not prepared him for this. The height and breadth of these giants was more than he expected, it felt like magic, like something that shouldn’t exist outside the pages of a fantasy novel. He followed one of the trees to the top branches, as they reached to the sky, seeming to nearly touch it.

 Adam dragged him over to where a display of a felled tree was, pointing out how old this tree was before it had fallen. Hundreds of years old, rings upon rings. He then led him into the forest, over a stream, past moss covered wooden rails. The deeper they ventured, the fewer people there were, until, eventually, they were completely alone.

 "Do you come here often?" Ronan asked. He hadn't ever seriously thought of living outside of Virginia and the Barnes, and he loved the forest he had spent his teenage years following Gansey through, but he thought he could bare living in a place like this too.

 "Not often, when I need to breath." Adam laughed, "It takes forever to get up here most days, through the city."

 "California traffic is a bitch." Ronan grinned. 

 "Traffic, you have to sacrifice your soul to afford housing, nobody knows how to make tea." Adam shrugged, "But there is In'N'Out."

 Ronan let out a puff of air that passed for a laugh, stepping over a fallen branch as he did. When he looked back at Adam, who had his eyes closed and both hands pressed against a tree. He looked like he was part of the magic that made up this forest, like he belonged to it and it to him. Adam stayed like that for several long moments, and when he finally shoved himself away, he seemed lighter. Like the tree had restored something in him.

 "But you love it here, despite all that." Ronan guessed.

 "Yeah," Adam sighed, "I worked all my life for this, and I love it."

  As they continued along the trail, Ronan was surprised by how honest the conversation became, and how easy it was to tell Adam about everything. About the night of his parents car accident that instantly killed his Dad and left his Mom in a coma. He told Adam about the drinking and tattoo, and the fight with Declan when he announced he was taking their Mom off life support. He told him about Opal, too, how she had been with Declan after their parents died and why. The racing, the drinking, passing out in a pew at St. Agnes, the depression, the suicidal thoughts. The long recovery that followed. He told him about Gansey, too, about the bond the two had formed. 

 In turn, Adam told him about a trailer, and a father that had never wanted to be a Dad. His complicit mother that let his father hit him. About the dust and the dirt and the scars. He told Ronan about the hours he worked through high school, about the night his father had left him with hearing in only one ear. He talked about his dream of getting out, of leaving and going somewhere far, far away. How he had gotten accepted to Stanford, about his teammates and coaches. About his too nosy roommate, and the head coach that the team was convinced was a former hit man. 

 Maybe it was the forest, its magic that demanded truths be spoken. Maybe it was just that some things simply had to be said before they tore a hole through your stomach. And Ronan and Adam had both just been on the brink of spilling their guts to someone and happened to meet each other. 

 Whatever it was, when Adam dropped him back off, he felt like he could breath easier. He hoped Adam felt the same way.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lets be real, y'all thought I would never post this, didn't ya ;)  
> This is late because I suck and also I had some personal stuff going on that affected my updating this, I'm really sorry. In other news, I made Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon, and therefore needed to make Gansey suffer by making it as well.

  Gansey, who had somehow gotten Parrish's number while Ronan wasn't looking, invited Adam to dinner the next night. He announced this faux casually just as he stepped away from the dining room table after the knock on the door. 

 Opal, who Ronan had thought would be happily surprised, sat knowingly and smugly in her chair. 

 Ronan stayed seated as Adam walked up to the table and began greeting the others. He had a box of donuts in his hands, "for dessert" he said to Opal with a wry grin, and a Nike bag slung across his shoulder that he very carefully sat next to his chair when he took a seat. 

 Gansey made a few more ungainly motions carrying dinner over to the table than typical, all the while apologizing to Adam about the "lack of accoutrements", a word Ronan knew he had only learned from the hours spent watching the Food Network with him during their Aglionby days, and which they had spent two hours arguing over it referring to the utensils used and not food. Ronan also knew he had spent 6 hours today preparing the Boeuf Bourguignon he was now trying to brush off as 'nothing'. 

 Ronan got the feeling he was watching an odd mating ritual being performed by an exotic creature; his best friend. Adam didn't seem to catch on, and was being horribly polite about everything. He would have laughed had he not been signaling to Opal to begin saying grace.

 Opal bent her head, and the others quieted down, finally used to the observance after several days of living together. 

 "Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua..." 

 When she finished, Ronan mouthed 'show-off' at her for saying the prayer in Latin as the two of them made the sign of the cross. She made a face that seemed to say 'so what if I am?' in response.

 Once this was over, Gansey immediately resumed his mating ritual, asking Adam about his field of study, his interests outside of baseball, and what he wanted to do in the future. 

 "Bio-mechanical engineering," he answered, which suitably impressed Gansey and launched a short debate between Henry and Adam regarding a lecture for a class they had shared the previous semester.

 "Gardening," he said with a shrug at the questioning faces around him. Ronan understood, he had mentioned it during their long talk in Muir Woods. How caring for these living things eased something inside of him that he couldn't explain.

 "Research in a hospital after getting my Masters, hopefully," he said, and smiled indulgently when Opal interjected with "Or playing for the Majors with a $20 million contract."

 "Oh," Gansey said, watching Adam with wide eyes, "Is that something you would want to do, play professionally?"

 Ronan, too, was curious about that. Over the course of their heart-to-heart in the forest, the future had been the least discussed topic.

 "Of course," Adam shrugged, "But it's not realistic to plan for that. If it happen's, great, I would do that for a few years before getting my Masters and continuing down my current path, but that happens for so few college athletes."

 "Does it?" Blue asked around a mouth full of bread. "But there are so many teams, with a whole bunch of players. They have to come from somewhere."

 "Maybe 2% of college athletes get drafted to play their sport professionally, so no, not really something you should plan for." Adam said.

 "What? That can't be right." Blue insisted, tearing off more bread to eat from Henry's plate.

 "It is though. It's about the same number of high school athletes that get scholarships to an NCAA school." Adam answered. "And only Div I even gives full scholarships, Div II and III can only offer partials, and even those are pretty rare. And even among Division I scholarships, since baseball isn't a 'full-ride or not at all' sport, they usually split their 11 allocated full rides to something like 30 players. Unless you're a great player and they really want you, it isn't a whole lot of money. It helps, sure, but not as much as it could."

 "And Adam, of course, received a full-ride scholarship." Henry said, waving his fork in Adam's general direction.

 "Are you that good?" Ronan asked.

 Adam fidgeted in his seat, looking supremely uncomfortable. Opal, seeing that he was refusing to answer, did it for him.

 "Of course, they were already talking about him back when he played little league." She scoffed.

 "Sure, but one good player on a crappy team won't amount to anything. I was lucky, I had great coaches on my little league team and in high school, and my teams in both were really good, too. A guy from my little league is playing at UVa and Steve Stark is playing at Old Dominion." Adam said, smiling as Blue groaned at the name.

 "God, Steve was such a piece of shit." She said at Gansey's raised brows.

 "He took three girls to Junior prom, and didn't tell any of them he was taking the other two as well. That was one of his more minor offences on the population of Mountain View, but he's still the best short-stop I've ever played with." Adam laughed. Ronan was slowly falling in love with that laugh, free and relaxed, and hard to come by.

 "He once made a teacher cry by writing a poem about Pluto being the god of the underworld, and the planet losing it's planet status and the two, god of the underworld and planet, meeting in Hades. It was a math class. He was sent up to the board to solve for X and wrote that instead." Blue groaned.

 "But Opal praises your abilities so often, you must be a natural, Adam." Gansey said, steering the conversation back to Adam, and away from the mysterious Steve.

 "No, I just worked really hard for it." Adam said, shrugging again. 

 "Oh, well, Gansey was on the rowing crew, and Lynch here played tennis," Henry began.

 "Gansey quit before senior year and I missed practices enough that I was never officially a member of the team." Ronan interrupted him, "Neither of us worked that hard."

 "I concur, though I did give crew a rousing try for awhile." Gansey agreed.

 "So, how much would you say you practiced, Adam?" Opal wanted to know.

 "In high school? Usually 30 hours a week. During the season, we would play three games a week, and have practice the other three days. Beyond that, you were expected to run or do weights in your free time. So maybe another 5 or 10 hours a week." Adam said, pushing his food around his plate. "Me and some of the other guys had jobs on top of that. And I kept my GPA at 4.0 for all four years, so I basically didn't have a social life or sleep at all in high school."

 "That sounds shitty as fuck." Ronan said.

 Adam smiled at him. Shit. Shit shit shit shit. Ronan wanted Adam to smile all the time, even if it wasn't at him. Even if it meant Adam was smiling at something painfully dumb and embarrassing that Ronan had done. It would be worth it.

 

 

 After dinner, they resettled in the living room, and Ronan found himself sitting far too close to Adam, who was gesturing Opal over and opening his Nike bag.

 "This is just some of the free stuff I got and had laying around and will never use, do you want it?" He asked, pulling out a lanyard, beanie, a t-shirt that said 'Fear the Tree', and a baseball covered in a signature. "You can have the bag too, I have three of them."

 She looked wild-eyed at Ronan, seeming to beg him to let her say yes and accept the gifts. He shrugged at her, and made a 'go-ahead' gesture. She made an odd choked noise and started thanking Adam, before pausing. She was gazing at the signed ball and then at Adam and back again.

 Ronan and Blue both noticed and tried to peer at the baseball to see what about it had caused this reaction, but before Ronan could get a good look, Opal was darting forward to sling her arms around Adam and whispering something to him.

 "My coach knows him," Adam said back to her. This just made Ronan more curious so he twisted to see what was written on it. He caught half a signature before Opal pulled out of Adam's tentative hug and he realized it was from an MLB player that even Ronan had known of before Opal got obsessed with the sport. If there was another athlete whose skills Opal admired almost as much as Adam Parrish's, it was the man whose signature was scrawled on the ball he had just given her.

 Gansey, who seemed to have caught on to what had happened, snapped a photo, and asked Opal to model her knew gifts. Surprisingly, she complied, and she ran off to model and send the pictures back to Matty and Declan.

 "Thank you," Ronan said, not quite looking at Adam, "I didn't know you knew she was a fan."

 "Most kids that like baseball are, at some point, big fans of his." Adam said, and Ronan was still sitting close enough that he could feel it when he shrugged. "I was, anyway. When you're a kid, it's fun liking the great players, 'cause its harder to be disappointed. You can watch them play, and they usually win, and that feels like you've won as well."

 Ronan tried to casually put some distance between them by scooting to the next cushion on the sofa. He thought about what Adam had said, and wondered if it was true. If that was why he had loved the Power Rangers and the Jedi and the Ninja Turtles as a kid. Because he knew, even if things were difficult, at the last moment, the hero would find a way to win. That good characters would triumph and the cruel, evil villains would lose. He wondered if a kid like Adam, like Opal, who had known earlier than most other kids what cruelty was, needed those hero's who always won even more than others.

 "I guess," he said finally, simply. 

 They talked for a while longer, before Henry came striding in with the donuts, Blue hanging on his arm and asking why he had never gotten her a shirt that said 'Fear the Tree'. Gansey and Opal were right behind them and were talking in low tones, although they finished talking once they were seated. 

 

 

 When it was finally time for Adam to leave, and he was distracted with saying goodbye to Henry, Blue and Opal, Gansey asked Ronan to walk him out the door.

 "The fuck?" He muttered, looking at the door that was literally right there, what the fuck Gansey? Did he honestly think Adam was incapable of finding the door that was 10 feet away?

 "Be polite, Ronan." Gansey said around his clenched teeth. He began making jerking motions with his head towards the door, and shooting him significant looks with his eyes. Ronan couldn't translate the looks, and thought that perhaps his friend had been spending too much time with his boyfriend. But, with a groan, he gave in. 

 "Parrish!" He called, too loudly, and startling everybody else. "Dick thinks you need help finding the door."

 Adam turned to Gansey, his face going mysteriously red. Probably, he was angry. Ronan would have been, if someone thought he couldn't find the door that was _literally right there, god gansey!_

 "Oh," Adam said, "Uh, bye, I guess, everybody. I'll see y'all at the game against Cal the day after tomorrow?" 

 In answer there was a chorus of "Wouldn't miss it!" and "Yeah, of course, bye Adam!" and "Yep! Tootles!" and "Yes! Bye!".

 And then Ronan was standing and prodding Adam to the door. And out the door. And then, they were standing on the sidewalk, Ronan's hands stuffed deep in his pockets, ignoring the way that caused his jeans to drag down and expose a small bit of his stomach. If his hands were free, he might try to do something stupid, he didn't quite trust himself. He couldn't help but notice the way Adam's gaze trailed down and hurriedly back to Ronan's face what it settled on his left eyebrow.

 "Well," Ronan said, a little thrilled that he was maybe getting a reaction from Adam, but not quite knowing what to do with it.

 "I should go," Adam said, made no motion to go, just kept standing there.

 "You're probably busy tomorrow, what with the game the day after and shit, right?" Ronan asked, desperately hoping he was wrong. That maybe Adam would borrow the Mustang again. That maybe they could go another drive or another hike through the forest. That maybe, maybe, maybe, they could call it a date if they did.

 Adam grimaced, and Ronan lost what little hope his heart had traitorously managed to stir up. Adam shuffled from one foot to another, and said, "I'll be busy, yeah, and I know you said you hate your phone, but maybe I could call or something?"

 "Oh, yeah, sure." Ronan hurried to say, "I may not pick up, but sure."

 

 

 The next day, Ronan answers the phone on the second ring when Adam's name flashes across his screen. He curses himself in his mind as he taps the green circle. They don't even talk about much, the weather, for some reason, it's Palo Alto, the weather is nice, it's always nice. What Opal is up to, which, why she is chasing Gansey with his giant fucking bird is a little hard to explain, admittedly, but it earns him another one of Parrish's rare laughs, so. Maybe he should get another raven. Maybe he should encourage Gansey getting chased by his sister and bird more often.

 They spend a whole minute not talking at all. It isn't an awkward silence. Neither feel the need to fill the silence with words. Its just nice. A natural silence.

 And then, one of Adam's teammates steals his phone and starts asking him an insane number of questions in rapid succession. Before Ronan can answer even one, or tell him to fuck off, there is the sound of a scuffle over the line. After several moments, Adam's voice is back, breathing a little heavier, either from the scuffle or annoyance, Ronan can't tell. In the background, Ronan could faintly make out what is possibly complete chaos.

 "Sorry about that," Adam huffed, "The others came in and - Goddammit Cory, get the fire extinguisher! - and they're a bunch of assholes - Manuel, stop laughing and do something! - and, uh, I have to go. Sorry about them. I'll text later. Or something. Ok, bye."

 With that, Adam ends the call and Ronan spends a long moment wondering what the fuck had happened.

 "Fire extinguisher?" He muttered to himself. He says it too loudly, because Gansey, who was closer than Ronan realized, stops his running and turns to him.

 "What's on fire?" He asked.

 If you had never bothered to get to really know Gansey, you would think his expression placid, his voice calm. Gansey was the type of person that could say 'What's on fire' and have it sound as though he were saying 'The sky is blue' or 'Mount Rushmore is in South Dakota' or 'what fine weather we are having'. Ronan, who had bothered (by choice or by force or by fate, he didn't know) to get to truly know Gansey, heard the panic in his voice, saw the subtle twitch in his jaw.

 "My loins," Ronan replied, as monotone as he could.

 "Don't be crass, Ronan," Gansey admonished, sniffing and straightening his posture.

 At that, Ronan bared his teeth to signify how disgusted he felt at that suggestion. Crassness was an art Ronan Lynch had spent most of his teen years perfecting, and he was not willing to let all the work go to waste.

 

 

 

_Adam Parrish  -6:12_

_Sorry again about earlier, my teammates are disasters. In case Henry didn't already tell you, our coach was able to get all of you tickets for tomorrow._

 

 -6:42

  cheng said

 -6:42

 and it's cool abt th teammates thing

-6:44

 wht ws up with the fire tho?

 

  _Adam Parrish - 6:50_

_It was a small fire._

 

 -6:53

 uhhhh ok bur how dido it happn???

 

  _Adam Parrish - 6:55_

_Pre-game ritual got out of hand._

 

 - 6:57

 ?????

 - 6:58

 The Fuck

 - 6:58 

 ????

 - 7:00

  
 no, srsly how does this happn i gotta know???

 

  _Adam Parrish - 7:04_

  
_Jaime, my catcher, set my shoes on fire._

 

 - 7:08

what. the. fuck.

 - 7:09 

  
 why?

 

_Adam Parrish - 7:12_

  
_Like I said, ritual._

 

 - 7:14

  
 i know rituals im catholic

  
 - 7:16

  
 thts not a ritual its torture

 

_Adam Parrish - 7:19_

  
_Hahaha, no, it's not. It's just something we (baseball players) do sometimes._

 

 Ronan spends a few seconds after this reply with his thumbs hovering over his keyboard, formulating a response, when his phone starts buzzing, alerting him to the fact that Adam was now calling him.

 "What's up?" He asked, willing his voice to be as casual as possible. He thinks he maybe, possibly, kind of fails.

 "Um," Adam said, failing at casual just as badly, "I'm kind of outside your house?"

 "What?" Ronan asked, already tumbling from his bed, and kicking on his boots, and taking long strides to the front door. When he opened it, there Adam was, sliding his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. Ronan was about to ask if he had been texting and driving, a stupid stupid stupid thing to do, but noticed the Red Mustang across the street, and the hint of blonde hair hiding in the front seat very pointedly ignoring them.

 "I haven't got long, I have to be up early for tomorrow, and I can't keep coach Czerny, but I had to talk to you," Adam said, rushed. "I just want you to know, I think Opal's cool, and I know she's your first priority, and I wouldn't be shitty about that, she should be. But. Shut me up, if I'm wrong or whatever, or something, but-okay. Do you maybe wanna go out, sometime?"

 Ronan wasn't sure if 'surprise' was quite the right word for what he was feeling, in that moment. Shocked, yes. Elated, also yes. Concerned that his heart was going to damn near come out of the protective cage of his ribs? Abso-fucking-lutely.

 But then again. Hadn't a part of Ronan's mind felt like this could, maybe, sorta, happen? His heart hadn't really caught on, but the little hopeful portion of his brain that still prayed to the saints, and said he was doing okay with Opal, and didn't feel like living was such a pain in the ass? Didn't that portion feel like this could happen, that he could have this? That he, despite what his mind usually told him, deserved this chance at possible happiness, even?

 Adam was looking expectantly at him.

 Oh.

 Right. 

 "Uh," He said and glanced at the Mustang, where Adam's coach was still conspicuously not looking in their direction, to the house, which was now eerily silent. He nodded his head, jerkily, once.

 "Okay," Adam breathed, "Cool. Cool. Okay. So, just to be clear? You are agreeing to go out with me? Romantically?"

 "No, as bros. You fucking ass. Yes,  _romantically_ ," Ronan muttered, wishing he weren't in his PJ's, suddenly. "Or, y'know. Whatever."

 Adam smiled, and it wasn't like his other smiles. Where they were rare and pretty and soft and sometimes smirking, this smile was so much more. Private? Or like a secret, whispered and quiet and so private. 

 And then Adam shifted forward. Just the slightest bit.

 And Ronan's body shifted, just a bit more.

 And Ronan wasn't thinking, it was just.

 Right.

 Natural.

 And then a fucking car horn blared, and they were pulling away from each so quick, Ronan assumed at least one of them would get whiplash.

 Adam mumbled an apology and a goodnight, and Ronan watched as he jogged across the street, threw himself in the passenger seat, and slammed the door. Through the Mustang's open window, he could make out the blonde's cackling and Adam's exasperated, "God, shut the hell up, you fucking asshole."

 Ronan waited until they were safely down the street, and his face had gone from red to just pink, before throwing the door open to the rental house. He narrowed his eyes at the closed bedroom doors until Gansey opened the hall closet door, scaring the shit out of him, and silently walked to his bedroom. Once his friend was safe behind his bedroom door, Ronan flung a single boot at him, enjoying the loud thud it made upon impact with the wall next to the door.

 

 

 The next afternoon, Ronan found himself sitting at the end of their row at Klein Field at Sunken Diamond, Opal was beside him and shouting vehemently at the referee. She was joined, occasionally, by Henry repeating her in French, Korean, and Chinese, alternatively. Well. When he wasn't too busy not subtly flirting with Blue like the disgusting weirdos they were. At least Gansey was being sensible, just watching the game like a caricature of a normal person.

 Ronan understood the basics of baseball, gained through osmosis since Opal would talk on and on about it, so he understood that the game was going on forever.

 Adam and his team would get a run, and then another, and then a strike, and then a walk, and another run. The opposing team, despite what Ronan assumed were Adam's best efforts, repeated the pattern. Ronan and half the stadium cheered when Adam struck out a hitter, and cheered when Stanford got a hit. Booed when their opponents struck out a hitter, and booed when they got a hit. It felt like an unusually long game, and they were only at the top of the 3rd inning. God.

 By the time the seventh inning stretch rolled around, he was grateful for the break in the monotony. Opal's and Gansey's too enthusiastic rendition of 'Take Me Out To The Ballgame' was a little embarrassing, yes, but at least it was also funny. 

 In the end, Stanford lost by two runs.

 Their group left the stadium in low spirits, except for Opal. Ronan had been afraid she would be dejected by the loss, but she had just huffed and said, "Well, it's not like this match even mattered. It was a practice game. Just wait till they kick their butts during the Pac-12 conference."

 They were almost to the parking lot when Ronan felt his phone vibrate. He pulled it from his pocket to read the message, glancing up at Henry after, who gave a wink and made a distraction that allowed him to slip away unnoticed. 

 Adam was waiting for him at the exit of the locker room, still in his uniform, grinning despite the results of the game. Bathed in the colors of the setting sun, grinning, seeming as happy to see Ronan as Ronan was to see him, he was indescribably beautiful.

 Ronan isn't sure if he kisses Adam, or if Adam kisses him. Only that it feels as right and natural as it had last night. It's like breathing. Like dreaming.

 In that moment, Ronan knows, like he thinks he maybe always knew, that this is a forever thing. Like how Gansey and Henry and Blue, despite their frequent and often extended separations, are a forever thing. Like how the sun rises and sets. Like how the earth continues to turn. 

 Maybe it's too early, but he knows he is in love with Adam Parrish. And when they break away, he tells him so. 

 And it's Adam's private smile that breaks across his face before he leans in, holding Ronan closer, and whispers the same words in his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Thats my entry for the Raven Cycle Big Bang 2019!!!  
> This would not have happened without the help of Sinai, who was a super cool beta  
> And the Amazing Bonzarr, who created [ this lovely piece of art ](https://bonzarr.tumblr.com/post/184432047142/hi-here-is-my-work-for-ravencyclebigbang-i) for this story, go tell her how awesome it (and she!) is!!!
> 
> Many thanks to everyone who has read, kudo'd, subscribed, bookmarked or commented on this. You make my day, seriously.  
> If you feel like this ended too abruptly and are interested in a (shorter) version of this work with extra background info and OC's and a possible time-skip ending from Adam's POV, let me know in a comment! Or shoot me a message over on my tumblr - daleyposts! 
> 
> Also:  
> -You can decide for yourself which MLB player, current or retired, whose signature it is... in my head, it's one of 3 players; Jeter, A-Rod, or Ichiro, but you can pick whoever you want lol (even someone fictional!)  
> -Stanford athletes get lots of Nike stuff  
> -In case it wasn't obvious, Gansey and Opal (and to a lesser extent, Declan, who Opal is plotting with on the phone) spend this whole fic trying to get Ronan and Adam together.

**Author's Note:**

> Filthy Yakker: Baseball slang that means a really good curveball.  
> Curveball = something unexpected  
> filthy yakker = something really good that is unexpected.
> 
> St.Jude = Patron Saint of lost causes and desperate cases.
> 
> Who's on first - skit by Abbott and Costello
> 
> Star Wars wasn't actually shot in Muir Woods, but further north, near Crescent City. Adam Parrish is a fake Star Wars fan for not knowing this. (BTW, if you ever get the chance to see the Red Wood forest, do it, please).
> 
> This fic was supposed to be one chapter but... now its two! (Because I am horrible and couldn't finish in time.)  
> Theres a whole lot of run on sentences probably... sorry.  
> Also, how many times can I make people sigh??? All the time, all these kids are tired.


End file.
